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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26751067">Bad Decisions</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Facialteeth/pseuds/Noteventhat'>Noteventhat (Facialteeth)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Halloween Fics [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alec Lightwood Has Anxiety, Alternate Universe - Horror, Demon Magnus Bane, Gen, Horror, Insomnia, Isolation, M/M, Magnus is a literal demon fucking with Alec, Mental Instability, Mundane Alec Lightwood, Not Exactly Anything Angsty but not a Happy Ending, Not Explicit Relationship Really, Panic Attacks, Psychological Horror, Scary, Shadowhunter Bingo 2020, Square filled: Halloween Fic, Twitter as a form of Horror, Vague Ending, mentions of hallucinations, self gaslighting, throwing up</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:20:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,479</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26751067</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Facialteeth/pseuds/Noteventhat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There was something in Alec's apartment and he was pretty sure it was trying to seal him inside.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Halloween Fics [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/830448</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>SHBingo 20-21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bad Decisions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is my first submission for Shadowhunters Bingo! I already had this written and I got 'Halloween Fic' on my bingo sheet, so I figured why not. </p><p>Happy First of Halloween Everyone! Welcome to Spooky Season!</p><p>Enjoy this fic on <a href="https://facialteeth.tumblr.com/post/630789165583368192/bad-decisions-ao3-this-is-a-submission-for">tumblr</a> instead.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Something was fucking with Alec. He was sure of it. He could feel it slinking around just outside of his vision every moment that he was home. He could feel it’s breath on his neck when he stood in the kitchen. He could hear it shifting in the dark as he laid in bed at night, trying and failing to fall asleep.</p><p>Something was in his apartment and for a long time, Alec felt like it was just waiting. It stayed in the shadows, lurking and watching but not doing anything to him at all, staying subtle enough for Alec to question if it was even real. Alec wasn’t sure what had changed but it didn’t seem like the creature was content with lurking anymore.</p><p>It started slowly and so simply that Alec could almost convince himself he was making it up. It started so mundane. His window wouldn’t open. Alec had a window in his kitchen that he opened every single morning. He liked feeling the soft breeze come through his kitchen in the early hours but one morning, his window just stopped opening.</p><p>At first, Alec thought it was stuck or locked but no matter how many times he flipped the lock trying to remember which way it was supposed to go, it refused to budge. No matter how many butter knives he tried to shove in the gap, it refused to move an inch, like it had never been made to open at all.</p><p>Alec brushed it off. He tried to rationalize it. Maybe, water had gotten into the gap and made the window swell shut. He hadn’t ever had an issue opening it or any other window in his apartment before but what was the other explanation? That it randomly decided not to work anymore? That he’d somehow broken it?</p><p>In the back of his head, even then, Alec’s mind screamed that something was wrong but what was he supposed to do? Call someone? Tell them there was a creature in his apartment and that he thought it had glued his window shut just to fuck with him? Alec imagined how that conversation would go if he tried and he knew he couldn’t tell anyone at all. They’d commit him.</p><p>Perhaps, that was the first bad decision he made. The second bad decision he made was still staying silent when the same thing happened to every single window in his house- one by one, they all just refused to open.</p><p>Water, swelling- Alec repeated to himself. He stopped trying to open the windows after a while. It was easier to ignore it. He didn’t have another option. It was normal. It was fine, he tried to tell himself. He couldn’t even tell anyone he was having problems with his windows if he wanted to because every time he tried the words seemed to get stuck in his throat before they came out but it was fine. Everything was fine.</p><p>He was just an over thinker and an anxious one at that. Jace kept telling him he had to see a therapist again. He kept saying it would help him. Maybe, he should start taking his anxiety medication again as well but that would involve a few phone calls and that Alec knew he wouldn’t make. It was easier to pretend that everything was okay.</p><p>He brushed it all off. He was anxious. That was it. When he heard something laughing behind him as he checked every single window in his house for the last time, he brushed that off too. He was hearing things. He’d never hallucinated before. He’d never been unable to trust what he was hearing but he was hearing things. It was the only thing that made sense.</p><p><em>Something is fucking with me</em>, half of Alec’s mind screamed. <em>Why would something fuck with me just to seal all my windows shut</em>, the other half yelled back. None of it was real. He was anxious. He was making it up. Maybe, he was just stressed about work.</p><p>Alec did his best to ignore it all, as if ignoring it would somehow make it all go away. He started taking sleeping pills just so he could fall asleep at night and not stay up, listening to movement in the dark. He was drinking far more coffee than he should be and his shaking hands were evidence of that. He just barely made it to work every day and even his coworkers noticed something was wrong with him.</p><p><em>I don’t feel good</em>, he’d tell them.<em> Something is going to kill me</em>, he wanted to say instead.</p><p>It was fine. He could survive without windows. Everyone drank too much coffee. Everyone struggled to make it to work sometimes. Everyone needed help to fall asleep every once in a while.</p><p>In retrospect, he should have realized that whatever was in his apartment was slowly sealing him inside. He should have realized that’s where it was all going. One window, he could brush off. All his windows - well, then it was obviously it was a pattern that was growing but when Alec woke up one morning and his back door refused to open - Alec should have known then to run.</p><p>He should have grabbed anything he needed or even just left it all and he should have walked out the only working door in his apartment and never gone back. Whatever the thing was that was doing this, it had given Alec a chance. One window - all the windows. One door... it should have been so obvious what was going to happen next. Alec should have run for his life.</p><p>Instead of leaving, Alec had taken a deep breath, made another pot of coffee and gone to lock himself in his bedroom for another restless day and then another night without sleep.</p><p>It would be fine, he kept telling himself. None of this made any sense. It was okay. Tomorrow morning, everything would be fine. The doors would open. The windows would open. He would be fine. Nothing else made sense. He would be fine.</p><p>Alec almost swore he heard something speak in the dark of his bedroom that night, as he murmured to himself that everything was okay, even as the hair on his arms stood up straight. He couldn’t make out the words but if he had to guess, he thought the creature was mocking him. That’s what he thought now anyway. At the time, he’d murmured to himself that there was nothing there and that he was hearing things. At the time, he’d closed his eyes and tried desperately to fall asleep.</p><p>There was no creature, he repeated to himself. He kept thinking it over and over again, as if that would somehow make it true. He didn’t run. He didn’t even call his siblings. He just pulled the covers over his head like a child and put his headphones on full blast, listening to some TV show that he couldn’t focus on.</p><p>Not running. That had been bad decision number three and that had been the one that had really done him in. Later, he’d wonder if the creature only sealed one door that night because it had been curious if he’d leave or because it knew he would not.</p><p>It didn’t matter. The outcome was the same. The next morning, when Alec checked his front door, it wouldn’t open. It wouldn’t budge even an inch, the same way his windows wouldn’t open, the same way his back door wouldn’t open. Alec didn’t even react at first. He just stood in front of his door, dressed in his work uniform, staring straight ahead of him, like the door would magically open the longer he stared in denial.</p><p>Alec turned around. He took his hat off. He placed his bag slowly onto the ground and then he knelt against the carpet of his entryway. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream until his throat was hoarse and torn. He wanted to yell at the creature or the demon or whatever the hell it was and he wanted to ask what it wanted from him but he didn’t do any of that. He just sat there, staring blankly ahead.</p><p>He half expected the creature to reveal itself to him that day but it didn’t. He knew by then that it liked fucking with him. Why would it show itself so early, when it could watch Alec go insane instead?</p><p>Alec changed into his normal clothes and he sat at his kitchen counter. He ate breakfast and had more coffee. He didn’t know what else to do.</p><p>He didn’t even think to check his phone until later. When he clicked on the screen, he half expected it to stay dark but it didn’t. It lit up, showing him the same photo he’d taken of Izzy, Jace and himself last year. He entered his passcode and it opened, like normal.</p><p>He took a sip of coffee and for a moment, he almost felt like everything <em>was</em> fine. In the beginning, he’d thought his mind was tricking him. He’d thought his mind was making up this creature in his apartment, making up the windows, the doors, the sounds.</p><p>Now, he felt like his mind was tricking him by trying to make him feel like everything was normal. He felt like his mind was tricking him by trying to convince him everything was fine when Alec should have been screaming, crying, doing anything he could to get away.</p><p>He scrolled through twitter. He looked at what was happening around the world. There was some new political scandal. Izzy and Maia had gotten frozen yogurt this morning. Jace was working out.</p><p>The world was fine. It seemed like everything outside his apartment was fine. The world kept moving and yet, Alec’s windows wouldn’t open. His doors wouldn’t open. Alec couldn’t leave. It didn’t make any sense.</p><p>Alec texted Izzy next. He wanted to call her but he didn’t think he would be able to get himself to say the words he needed to out loud. Maybe it was anxiousness like he’d thought earlier. Maybe something was stopping him from talking about it. Maybe he was really and truly losing his mind. ‘I can’t get out of my house,’ He finally texted her. ‘I’m locked inside.’</p><p>It took her twenty minutes for her to see the message and when she finally started typing back, Alec was so anxious that he felt like he was going to throw up. ‘What do you mean?’ She wrote.</p><p>Something in Alec’s chest eased the moment she responded. He half expected the message not to go through. He half expected Izzy to not text him back or not be able to. He half expected to be as sealed off from the world as he felt but apparently, that wasn’t the case. Maybe, whatever it was couldn’t affect his phone.</p><p>‘My door won’t open,’ he wrote. He wanted to go into more detail but why would that help? He felt like he would be pushing his luck trying to type out a memoir to his sister. She needed to know that he needed help and that was it. She needed to come get him out. Anything else could be said later. ‘Please come help me,’ he added, breaking a little as he typed it. ‘I need help. Izzy, please come get me.’</p><p>Alec waited nearly ten minutes but Isabelle didn’t read the message and she didn’t respond. He texted her again. ‘I need you.’ Ten more minutes went by. ‘I'm losing my mind Izzy please text me back.’ Five minutes went by. Alec was on the verge of hyperventilating. He thought he heard something moving behind him. ‘I'm going to die.’ Alec kept typing. ‘It's going to kill me.’ He couldn’t breath. ‘It's going to kill me.’ There was something behind him. ‘It's going to kill me.’</p><p>Isabelle read the message and as soon as she did, whatever Alec heard behind him stopped. It only took her a moment to respond.</p><p>‘:)’</p><p>Alec’s heart dropped in his chest the second he saw it. He knew all at once that he was not texting his sister. He knew all at once that no one was coming to save him. He knew that he was fully and completely trapped inside this apartment and he knew that it was all his fault and there was nothing he could do about it.</p><p>Alec dropped his phone onto the counter and then he bent over and threw up onto the floor, not even having enough time or rational thought to try and run to the sink. Cold sweat broke out across his back, making him shiver as he heaved and gagged.</p><p>His phone pinged with another message from Izzy.</p><p>‘:(‘</p><p> </p><p>Alec calmed himself down. He dug his fingers into his arms to ground himself. He cleaned up the mess he’d made. He looked behind him and felt no comfort in the fact that there was nothing there. He drank the rest of his coffee. He didn’t think he needed the caffeine right now but he couldn't stop himself from drinking it just to put something warm into his empty stomach.</p><p>He opened twitter again. He needed something to show him that he wasn’t completely disconnected from the world. He needed to see Jace again. He needed to see what Izzy was doing. He needed to know what stupid bullshit was going on in the world now.</p><p>He needed to know that he wasn’t alone here with it.</p><p>Alec wasn’t surprised with what he saw. He couldn’t even react. He felt shell-shocked. He felt like he was so terrified that his body couldn’t process anything more.</p><p>Every single tweet for the pages and pages that he scrolled had the same exact text.</p><p>‘:)’</p><p>‘:)’</p><p>‘:)’</p><p>‘:)’</p><p>‘:)’</p><p>Finally, after Alec had scrolled listlessly for what had to have been minutes, he came to something else. The twitter handle was blank. There was no photo. There was no username.</p><p>It read simply, ‘hi.’</p><p>Alec closed his phone and he didn’t open it again.</p><p> </p><p>The next two days, Alec spent reading. His phone stopped working the next day, when he finally convinced himself to pick it up and try to contact someone again. His laptop wouldn’t turn on anymore. Even his old DS refused to turn on for him. Alec spent two days reading or pretending to read, drinking coffee and then throwing up in the sink because he didn’t know what else to do.</p><p>Even the creature seemed to sink into the shadows and leave him alone for two days. He didn’t hear anything. He didn’t see anything moving in the dark. Everything was normal, except for the fact that Alec couldn’t leave. He couldn’t contact anyone but for those two days, he could still see everyone outside. He could see cars passing from his windows. He could see people walking. No one seemed to see him no matter how hard he banged on the windows but he could see them. He could sit and watch the world move outside, using it to ground him, remind him that there was something else here. Then, suddenly it was all gone. There was no one walking outside. There were no cars passing by.</p><p>Alec sat at the window and looked out onto his normally busy New York street for hours. There was absolutely no one at all. He didn’t even see a pigeon or a street rat. There was just nothing but empty dark buildings that had once been so full of life.</p><p>Alec finally closed his blinds.</p><p> </p><p>On the third day, Alec started to hear the creature again. It seemed to like to do that. It would take something away from him and then wait, like it was watching to soak in his reaction. Then, when it got bored, it would come back.</p><p>Alec tried to ignore it at first but he couldn’t. Every time that he heard something, he’d jump. Every time he felt something behind him, he’d spin around to try and spot whatever it was just to see nothing there. Every time he heard a laugh, he felt a cold nauseous chill go down his spine but every time, there was nothing there. No matter how real it felt and sounded, there was never anything there when Alec looked.</p><p>Things went like that for the next few days. Alec barely slept. He was constantly covered in a nervous sweat. His heart pounded in his chest all the time, loud enough that he could hear it in his ears and he was jittery, always looking over his shoulder, always expecting something to be there when something never was.</p><p>Alec finally fell asleep after countless days of staying awake twenty four seven. Before he fell asleep, he murmured to himself in a broken mantra that everything was okay, that there was nothing there, that everything was fine and he was going to go to sleep and wake up perfectly fine. None of those meaningless words truly helped though. Alec fell asleep eventually, not because he’d managed to soothe himself but because he was so exhausted that his body couldn’t stay awake any longer.</p><p>Alec knew it was a bad idea to sleep. He knew it when his heart was pounding in his chest as he got into bed. He knew it when every fiber of his being was screaming at him to get up and stay awake at any cost. Alec didn’t listen to his body. He was just so tired. Besides, it was inevitable. He had to sleep at some point. Why not give in now?</p><p>Still, Alec thought maybe he should have tried harder to hold it off. Maybe, he could have done something more. Maybe, there was some secret piece of the puzzle he was supposed to figure out before the creature got to him, in order to be let free but if there was a way out, Alec never found it.</p><p>Alec woke up in a cold sweat, hours after he’d finally fallen asleep. At first, Alec wasn’t sure why he’d woken up. His mind was still hazy from sleep and from dreams that were just dancing at the edge of his consciousness.</p><p>It was only when Alec opened his eyes that he realized someone was watching him. There was someone standing at the end of Alec’s bed, watching him, motionless. Alec scrambled to sit up when his mind finally caught up with what he was seeing, gasping in his panic as he jerked his legs close to his chest, as if that would somehow protect him.</p><p>The figure was entirely dark, a mess of black shapes and shadows, but Alec’s eyes were locked on something bright. In his terror, it took him a few seconds to even recognize what it was he was looking at.</p><p>Eyes. He was staring at a set of gold eyes, burning like an inferno, slit down the middle like a cat. They were beautiful but terribly, horribly so. Alec had never seen anything so terrifying in his entire life and yet, he was full of awe.</p><p>They were awful and Alec’s mouth went dry in astonishment. He wanted to move closer, to see them better. He wanted to cover his eyes so he never had to see them again.</p><p>The creature didn’t move. The eyes remained entirely still and then, they blinked and Alec finally scrambled to pull the sheet over his head, pressing his palms into his eyes and shaking, like he was a child again and he could make it go away if he just refused to look.</p><p>Under the sheets, Alec managed to convince himself that he’d pull his head back out and look to find nothing there at all. There would be no eyes, no figure shrouded in darkness at the foot of his bed but when Alec finally managed to pull the sheet down and look, the creature was even closer than it had been before.</p><p>Alec hadn’t felt the bed move but the creature was there, crouching before Alec in the darkness, it’s eyes shining. This close, Alec could see the creature wasn’t really made of shadows. There was an actual body there, a face beyond the terrifying eyes that made Alec’s heart want to stop in his chest. He could see sharp teeth pressed behind a curling, amused smile.</p><p>Alec wasn’t sure what happened next. He had to have passed out from fear. The last thing Alec saw was those terrifying eyes and a smile that made his heart feel like it was going to stop in his chest. In the end, it was a blessing that Alec passed out because if he hadn’t, he really might have had a heart attack.</p><p>That didn’t mean things were any better when he woke up again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Feel free to send me any halloween prompts on tumblr <a href="https://facialteeth.tumblr.com/"> here</a>. I'm so into halloween fics.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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